“You’re going to kill me,” he muttered.

  “Just wait,” I said.

  I liked to take control in bed. I liked to map out the whole process in my head, then let my little fantasy play out on the man I’d chosen to lay out in front of me. Or to lay out under. Having sex with a guy had always been part of the goal of experiencing the guy, but Mark was different.

  Our first time had been all-consuming, physically and emotionally. I couldn’t remember what had happened between us, from start to finish. What I did have locked away were snippets of memories: gasping moments, a wave of overwhelm, a spinning of my head that I thought would never stop and then suddenly, gloriously ended in the most incredible orgasm I’d ever experienced.

  I wanted that again, but in this moment, I craved teasing fun, laughter. Play. Mark made me feel light and confident, and here in my bed, in the barely filtering-in light, with a mint dissolving between my teeth, I wanted to enjoy him.

  With my fingertips pressing gently into his hip, I guided him so that he was lying face up on the mattress, pitching a tent with the bedsheets so high that it made my eyebrow shoot up. In the dark of the studio back room, and of his bedroom, it had been hard to imagine what his dick looked like.

  I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to imagine one this beautiful if I tried.

  I nudged his thighs apart and hoisted myself up, arranging myself between them. My head dipped down of its own volition, my lips opening just enough to lay a soft, sweet open-mouthed kiss on the head, my tongue flicking the slit. Mark groaned and his hands fisted into the sheets. One of my hands reached up to intertwine fingers with his, and the other rested on his thigh, which was already tensed, waiting for his release as if he had full confidence that I could make him come in seconds. A wave of affection washed over me, and I reached up to pet his cock from head to base. I kind of loved that he was circumcised, I thought before languidly licking a line along the path my hand had just traveled, admiring the way the lack of foreskin made every single ridge and vein stand out like it was waiting to pleasure me.

  “Is that…the mint?” Mark choked out, and I grinned, taking hold of his cock and running the head over my lips like I was applying lip balm.

  “How does it feel?”

  Mark squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know.” He swallowed hard.

  “It’s not…bothering you, or anything?” I managed, waiting for permission to take even more of him into my mouth.

  “God, no. It’s…”

  I sucked as much of him as I could inside, and his answering gasp ended in a slight choking yelp that I found absolutely adorable. After a few more seconds of bobbing up and down on him, applying light suction and as much mint-flavored spit as I could manage, his hand let go of the sheets and tugged at my ponytail instead.

  “You’re a miracle,” he murmured. “Toby, you…you have to stop.”

  I popped off and sat back on my heels, giving him a doe-eyed look of confusion. “Why?”

  “Because if you don’t, this will be over before it really gets started.”

  “Or it’ll just last that much longer,” I said, smirking at his shocked expression and leaning back down to resume my little tasting session. The truth was, I’d been wanting to give Mark head again, and I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t need too long to recover enough to fuck me properly. If, for some reason, he couldn’t get it back up, well…he was good at oral, too.

  That particular memory was seared into my brain. Recalling the way his tongue licked me like I was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted made me want to make him feel the same way, and before I knew it, I was devouring him. I didn’t give a shit about the wet noises or the squeaks of pleasure I was making while feeling his cock sliding against my tongue. I wanted to make him come, and come hard. I wanted him to compare every other blow job he’d ever gotten, ever would get, to the one I was giving him right now.

  And I wanted to win every time.

  It didn’t take long for every one of his muscles to tense up, and then for him to groan, jutting his pelvis toward my lips, spilling over my tongue in hot spurts. I swallowed and kept loving him with my mouth, gently, until he softened between my lips.

  I slid back up so that my gaze was level with his, grazing kisses over his skin along the way, and settled my back against his chest, so that I could feel him still warm and heavy against my ass, brushing the backs of my thighs. His arm wrapped around me immediately, and he buried his lips in my hair, growling in my ear, “I told you that you were going to kill me.”

  I laughed. “If you’re dead right now, it looks—and feels—good on you.”

  His hand drifted downward, and I lifted my leg slightly to accommodate him. He brushed over the hair covering my mound, which I kept trimmed but not shaved. “Love this,” he murmured before licking my earlobe and then biting down on it gently. A warm wave of desire rolled through me. “Never understand why women shave. This makes it so much more…inviting. Like an arrow pointing me in the right direction.”

  “You are always welcome to visit,” I laughed.

  “Mmm,” he responded. I thought he was delirious from coming, but almost without warning, he pushed himself up off the bed, letting me drop to my back. Instinctively, my arms went up over my head.

  “I thought I drained you of all your energy.”

  “Not all of it.”

  Mark set to work nipping down my neck, flicking his tongue along the tendons there, moving down and sucking my nipples with abandon, placing huge licking kisses into my navel, and finally putting that gifted mouth of his to work beneath my legs.

  I laughed, breathless, delighted, and deliriously happy, giving myself completely over to this man, beyond grateful that I’d given him a second glance.

  As he worked over me with his mouth, my thoughts faded into a haze of never, ever wanting this to end.

  Chapter 28

  Mark

  Toby was insatiable, as desperate for me as the first day I’d met her. I made her come with my mouth, and then she straddled me again. The way she bent down to kiss me, her hair blessing the space when it curtained on either side of our faces, drove me wild with possessive affection for her, and the way she moaned into my mouth like I was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted made me want to taste back—everywhere, all at once.

  That morning, I learned that she stashed condoms inside pillowcases and just under the elastic corners of her fitted sheets. I learned that she loved being on top, as long as I gripped her hips and helped her set the rhythm. I learned that she could have three—no, four—orgasms in one session, as long as the first one was oral foreplay and the last was teased out with slow, steady fingers in the haze of afterglow.

  That morning, Toby Eisen became putty in my hands.

  Early that afternoon, I walk-of-shamed back to my apartment. With every step, I tried to ignore that Toby had sent me tumbling head-over-heels for her, and my emotions showed no signs of slowing down.

  After that, our relationship fell into a steady, albeit tentative, pattern. Work, sex, hang out, go a couple days without seeing each other, repeat.

  We saw each other at Bro Show tapings, of course, but agreed to never let on to Shari that we were a thing. Toby and I took turns scolding each other for any look, any giggle that might reveal that she was the girl I was dating for all my “Whiz Kid Mark Mahler” segments.

  Of course, more than once we either waited for Shari and Ethan to leave the studio, and fucked up against the wall of the office, or got back home immediately after the show where we would spend hours in bed, our mouths busy devouring each other.

  Somehow, we managed to fit in a few other things, too. I finally rescheduled that visit to the Kimmel Center, but it was to hear Beethoven’s 9th Symphony played by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Toby cried again. I was more captivated by her than I’d ever been by any music, ever.

  She managed to convince me that Starbucks provided the quintessential coffee experience. I fed her as many of Joey and Hawk’s scones, which were the best representation of heaven on Earth in baked-good form, as I could. I watched Toby’s eyes roll back in pleasure as she bit into a brussels-sprout and cheddar version, then introduced her to the owners, Joey and Will “Hawk” Hawkins.

  I was only hoping to impress Toby with my music-scene contacts—this place hosted local acts often—but they ended up sharing a table with us and telling us the story of how they’d met. Joey laughed when she recounted how much she’d hated her now-husband when they’d first met, and Hawk squeezed her hand when he told us how scared he’d been that she’d change his life forever. She had, he said, chuckling, but it was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  I snuck a glance at Toby during the story. Her brows tented together and a soft smile pulled at her lips. One thing I’d learned about Toby was that she absorbed peoples’ stories like they were an elixir of life. It was as if the more she gathered, the more substance her own life story would have. She collected them like some kids collected trading cards. She loved every one, but it was like she’d always be on the lookout for that one life story that would complete her stash.

  As if, when that happened, she’d finally know what she really wanted from life.

  She didn’t hesitate to offer critiques of those stories, either.

  “I could never fucking understand Cinderella,” Toby groused in my ear while I was on my way to one of Cosmick Crew’s gigs. “I mean, sure, she had the memory of her parents to keep alive and whatnot, but after a certain amount of abuse, don’t you think she’d just leave that damn house? Hitchhike her way out of there and find a job? Like, what was she waiting for? Obviously, on some level, she was capable of handling her shit that whole time.”

  “She was waiting for her prince,” I answered absentmindedly as I shrugged out of my coat just inside the club’s door.

  “That’s bullshit!” Toby yelled, effectively blocking out any of the club’s background noise.

  “You’re right, Tobes. It is bullshit. But not everyone is as self-assured and driven as you and unfortunately that includes Cinderella. Listen, I gotta go, but—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I can hear the bass. Tell your friends good luck, okay?”

  My friends. I bit my tongue. What would be the point of mentioning that I was the manager for the biggest up-and-coming act in Philly EDM?

  Despite all the time we spent together, I hadn’t told her too much more about my work. My instinct was to guard our fragile, tentative relationship from any outside influences. Outside the bedroom, Toby was mostly one big unknown in my life. I didn’t want to give her details about my personal life that would make her want to peel herself away, like the plans I had to build up my business, or even the nature of said business.

  The fact that she hadn’t outright asked about my work made that a lot easier. I tried not to let her disinterest bother me. I was out late lots of nights and had lots of days where I jumped from meeting to meeting and couldn’t see her at all.

  She never indicated that it bothered her.

  She never indicated her feelings at all—toward me or anything that I did. We got along great when we were together, but Toby didn’t suggest in any way that she wanted to intertwine our lives any further.

  Which, if I let myself think about it, bothered me.

  The last thing I wanted, though, was to ruin whatever this thing was between us. So, for the next five weeks, I didn’t let myself think about it. Instead, I made sure I was busy.

  * * *

  Seven weeks into the Whiz Kid experiment, I had an opportunity to meet with some record execs in LA, an in from one of my friends from college. I took the week off from the show, counting on Ethan to find a replacement for me since I had to fly out on a Tuesday morning. I watched my phone all day, finally getting a text from Toby at five-thirty, right around when Shari would have been calling the first break.

  * * *

  Toby: Are you okay? Not like you to be a meeting no-show.

  * * *

  Of course I replied right away. I might have been able to keep myself in the present with Toby, but I couldn’t ignore her texts.

  * * *

  Me: Yep. Taking the week off. Traveling for a work thing.

  Toby: Oh.

  Toby: Have fun!

  * * *

  I bit my lower lip, waiting for her to text again, asking for more information. After ten minutes, I didn’t see anything. Not even the little reply dots.

  But hell, I really did miss her. Really wanted to talk to her.

  * * *

  Me: Call me tonight, if you’re not too tired?

  Toby. Yep. Not the same here without you, whiz kid.

  * * *

  I didn’t respond until she called me at what would have been eleven o’clock her time. I was still wide awake. Then, I answered the phone with, “I told you not to call me that.” I hoped she could hear the teasing in my voice.

  * * *

  “Okay, but…what if I called you that…in bed?”

  “You mean, like, right now? Because you are in bed, right?”

  “How could you tell?” she laughed.

  “I know your bedroom voice,” I replied.

  “Is that so? Does it make you…think of anything?”

  I’d never even considered having phone sex before. I’d also never considered that leaving town for five days would make me want a relationship, a real one, with Toby more than I already did.

  Biting my lip as I listened to her come over the phone that night, I vowed to do a better job of keeping my emotions in check and my head in the present, not a future that didn’t exist.

  Chapter 29

  Toby

  “Dude! Did you have phone sex?” Ethan stabbed at the “Let’s Get It On” button again, and I couldn’t help but giggle. There was frustration just underneath the surface, though. If only that song was applicable to this past week.

  “No, but I talked to this particular lady quite a lot this week.”

  “Help us out, bro. Is this Lion King Yoga lady?” He punched the “Circle of Life” sound button and snickered as the first couple notes blasted through the studio.

  “Yes…it is…” Mark drawled, looking everywhere but at me.

  “And her name is…”

  “Given on a need-to-know basis.”

  Mark shot a look at Shari, who shrugged.

  “Our producer says that will be fine for now,” Ethan said. “What should we call her, though? Girl Number One?”

  Shari leaned forward, pressing the intercom on her mic that would allow her to pipe her voice into the recording. I quickly scrambled to make sure her settings were compatible with Ethan’s and Mark’s. It was much easier to make sure things were right going into the recording than to edit them after the fact. “I don’t know, boys, I don’t like hearing girls with numbers attached to them. That’s kind of…”

  I scribbled something on a scrap of paper and slid it her way.

  “Dickish?” she read. I giggled.

  “All right,” Ethan began, “Toby, our sound girl, says that’s dickish. And even though this is The Bro Show, I’m going to say that numbers won’t cut it for a lady you’re dating, Mark. Just a tad too misogynist for our liking.”

  I nodded at that.

  “Toby doesn’t like it either, dammit. At least give the girl an alias.”

  The guys chuckled.

  “All right, how about we go alphabetical then.”

  “Like hurricanes,” Mark commented.

  “Yeah. Give her a name. Any name that starts with ‘A’.”

  “How about ‘Ava?’” Shari said. “Like Ava Gardner.”

  “Ava is perfect,” Mark said, gazing at me. I couldn’t help but be struck with the possible double meaning of his words. The way he looked at me, so intense and a little dark, it wasn’t hard for me to believe that he just might have thought I was. Perfect.

  Well, that was a strange feeling.

  “So, since I was out of town for work, Ava and I spent a lot of time on the phone this week…talking.”

  “Now, bro, I think a lot of us would agree that talking on the phone to one’s girl is a lost art. Texting is like…you can do that whenever. Doing whatever else on the side. You know?”

  “Yeah, and I didn’t want to do that with her. With Ava. It was like every time I tried to text her, the words I typed on the screen seemed…fake. Or shallow, or something. I’ve texted with other girls, but with her it felt wrong.”

  “We have a call coming in from Kyle, who lives in—oh! Chicago. Welcome to The Bro Show, Kyle.”

  “Thanks for taking my call, guys. I gotta say, I mostly just catch this show when I happen to be stuck in traffic, but I like this ‘looking for a girlfriend’ segment. Made sure to listen this week, and missed you last week, Whiz Kid. Listening to you guys talk about dating and women is like…more realistic than any stupid men’s magazine, and less stupid and clueless than talking to your beer-drinking buddies. No offense to them.”

  “I’m sure there was none taken,” Ethan said, beaming. “Thanks for the compliment. I’m sure the Whiz Kid here will learn just as much from you as you can learn from him.”

  “Yeah, man, I have to tell you, getting back to talking on the phone is something that could have saved my last relationship.”

  “Seriously?” Mark’s question came out a little surprised.

  “Yeah. Her job had her traveling a lot, and she wanted to talk on the phone. Like, every night. I couldn’t take it, man. I don’t know what it was, but I hated having my ear smashed up against the plastic, or something. So, I just texted with her instead, and then, when we could see each other again, there was, like…this gap. Like…I barely remembered her voice. It was like I was so disconnected from her that I couldn’t even read her moods anymore.”